Is it possible to get hyperlinks to open in a new window when saving Visio file as webpage?

I am trying to attach a file to a process block in visio using hyperlinks. I can get the hyperlink to open in the same window. The problem is when you are done referencing the document and click the back button it returns you to the 1st tab of the workbook. I was wondering if there was any way to open the hyperlinks in a new window or at least return you to the tab in the workbook in which the hyperlink is attached when the back button is clicked.

Visio does have a "new window" setting but for some inexplicable reason, they don't make it available via the hyperlink dialog.

However, you can set it in the shapesheet (if you need information about what the shapesheet is and how to make changes in it, just let me know).

Open the shapesheet for the shape with the hyperlink; scroll down to the hyperlink section (it's usually fairly close to the top), scroll to the right to find the New Window cell and change FALSE to TRUE. That's it!

The lack of easy access to this feature is one of many reasons my company built our own hyperlink dialog for our Visio add-in (see sample below; refer to my EE profile if you have any interest in more information).

BTW, if you want a macro to set the New Window option for any selected shape, let me know; it's pretty simple code.HL-Document-empty.bmp

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czwilsonAuthor Commented: 2008-10-14

Hey Scott, thanks for the help. I have changed the NewWindow cell in the ShapeSheet to true in all of the hyperlinks I want to pop up in the new window. The problem is when I save it as a webpage and click on the process block it is still opening in the same window. Is there anything else that I need to change?

No, I am hyperlinking to Word and Excel files and they are still opening in the same window. I tried to link to an exernal website and it still opened in the current window. I am using Internet Explorer amd Visio 2002. Will you please get me started with a macro that will make these objects open in a new window?

Interesting... I'll have to get to my system that still has Visio 2002 to see what happens there. It's not likely to happen today or tomorrow because I'm traveling but I will get back to you as soon as I can.

I retreated to Visio 2002 and my experience is now exactly the same as yours -- the New Window flag is apparently ignored. One potential solution: I discovered that I haven't used Visio 2002 is so long that I have Visio 2002 SR-1 (10.0.2415), which is the same version you have according to the notes in your question.

There is an SP2 that came after SR-1 (they apparently changed terminology from SR to SP??), which might fix the problem. However, I tried to install it but can't because I don't have the original CD for Visio 2002 -- it's 40 miles from here in my other office.

With a little luck, SP2 clears up the problem -- no guarantees, but it's possible.

If it doesn't, the only workaround I can envision is to edit the html code produced by Visio. I dug around in the html code and you can prove that altering the html will work by doing it manually as follows:

If your drawing is called
Drawing1 Visio 2002.vsd
look in the web page folder called
Drawing1 Visio 2002_files
for a set of files called
Drawing1 Visio 2002_vml_N.htm
where N is the page number.

For example, open the code for page 1
Drawing1 Visio 2002_vml_1.htm
and find occurrences of
target="_parent"
and replace with
target="_blank"

Be careful though, you don't want to replace *every* occurrence of
target="_parent"
Only replace the ones that follow immediately after
href="XXX"
and
title="YYY"
that apply to your linked shapes.